December marks the 25th anniversary of the commercial release of Titanic, the third highest-grossing film of all time and one of the three who have won multiple Academy Awards. He is not surprised that after such a long time small pearls continue to appear in the production process. Especially with regard to its protagonist, Leonardo DiCaprio, and its director, James Cameron.
A few days ago, James Cameron participated in a video interview with the magazine GQ where he looked back on his career and recalled his most iconic works, including the historical and romantic drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet about the sinking of the ocean liner.
According to the director, DiCaprio’s audition process for titanic it wasn’t easy at all. It seems that the star initially refused to read the role of Jack opposite Winslet during an audition.
Cameron, who arrived with the credentials of having written and directed the trilogy of Terminatorhe told the then young actor, “You’ll read or you won’t get the part.”
A “hysterical” encounter.
“There was a meeting with Leo and then an audition,” Cameron said. “The meeting was fun because I was sitting in a conference room, waiting to meet an actor. I look around and all the women in my office were at the meeting. Everyone wanted to meet Leo. He was hysterical,” James said.
The Canadian director said DiCaprio “captivated everyone” in their first meeting. But he did reveal that the audition was a little more controversial. While Kate Winslet was already prepared and determined to play Rose, that was not the case for DiCaprio.
“He came back a couple days later and I set up the camera to record the video,” Cameron said. “He didn’t know she was going to get tested. He thought it was another meeting to meet Kate.”
So I said, ‘Okay, let’s go in the next room, write a few lines and film them,'” he continued.
And he says to me, ‘You mean I’m going to read? ‘I don’t read,’” DiCaprio warned Cameron. The director assures that he did not even doubt it. “I shook his hand and said, ‘Thanks for coming.'”
The final decision
And when everything was ready for Leo’s casting for Titanic, DiCaprio reconsidered and went back to Cameron. “Wait wait wait. If I don’t read, I don’t get the part? Is that it?” he asked.
To which Cameron replied, “Yeah, go ahead. This is a giant film that will take up two years of my life.. You’re going to go off and do five more things while I work in post-production. I’m not going to ruin it by making the wrong casting decision. So go read, or you don’t get the part,'” James insisted.
“Then he walked in and it was like every ounce of his being was in negative mode. Until I said ‘Action’ and he became Jack,” Cameron concluded. “Kate just flared up and they shot the scene. The dark clouds had parted and a ray of sunshine descended and caught Jack. That’s when I said, ‘Okay. That’s the guy’” recalled the screenwriter of avatar and rambo.
A current cinematic epic
With a production cost of 200 million dollars and propelled by the chemistry of DiCaprio and Winslet, the 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures epic would go on to become the highest-grossing film of all time upon its release and for several years afterward.
Now, titanic it ranks as the third-highest grossing title in cinematic history with over $2.2 billion -not adjusted for inflation-. It is only surpassed by Avatars -by James Cameron himself- and for Avengers: Finale.
Additionally, it remains one of three films to have won a maximum of 11 Academy Awards, a record it shares with Ben Hur (1959) and with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
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Source: Clarin
